Reviews by delano
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A game about slavery in ancient Greece, with an impressive range of moral and strategic choices. Each situation is quite unique, and similar situations have prominent differences. Even the lengthy training sessions mix games of combat and skill. This wide range of choices is a real feat on the part of the author, and the best aspect of the game.
I found the characters to be more developed than the setting, and I suppose this makes sense in a game in which the player's score is defined entirely on their standing with the other characters. The game is mainly (but not entirely) set in a practice gladiator ring, which diminishes the historical aspects of the game.
The minimal setting is only really problematic because the story makes a point of the characters coming from different places. Any geographical setting is defined relative to the characters; countries are not so much a time and place, but a set of personality differences.
Take, for example, Lula's claim that Ethopians forbid crying. This is a believable cultural difference that contrasts Greece and Ethopia, and it is a good way of characterizing Lula's emotional strength, but it hardly evokes Ethopia as a place.
Combine this lack of setting with casually phrased dialogue and narration, like "Need a partner?" and "The crowd goes wild", and the game seems a little too modern.
Despite that, there are a few serious discussions concerned with the history and nature of slavery. I'm not an expert, but these discussions seem accurate. For example: (Spoiler - click to show)Caecelia questions whether the Gods destine some people to be slaves, and (Spoiler - click to show)Titus' mistress encourages you to buy freedom at the end of the game. All good efforts at describing a historical situation, and with a few more efforts like those, this could be a very good historical game.
A fun SF/fantasy adventure, May 4, 2014This is a fun science-fiction/fantasy adventure. The first half, involving scientific labs and technobabble, transitions nicely into a high fantasy setting with magical creatures in the second half.
The majority of puzzles involve combining magical spells to produce an item that is useful in an exchange. This magic system is interesting in that it is based on ethical values of balance and equality. These values fit quite well with a maxim of traditional adventure games: each item unlocks something new; each cost has a payoff.
However, some puzzles showcase these values better than others. Apart from one or two puzzles, I never really felt that the exchanges held any emotional cost or benefit for the characters, or ecological cost or benefit to the world. (The puzzle in which you (Spoiler - click to show)repay Axia by catching a crab is one of the best. Most other exchanges simply seemed to involve random items, despite being cleverly structured puzzles.)
That said, relationships between characters are well-developed when considered independently from the puzzles. Each character is part of a complex society of magical creatures that is smartly based on ecological values. The society is sublimely beautiful but not blandly utopian. There are tiny tastes of tragedy within a kind-hearted world; the predator-prey relationships demonstrate this brilliantly.
My only other criticism: the writing needs to be trimmed in some places. There's an introductory scene in a helicopter with quite a lot of plot exposition. A little exposition is okay, but I didn't appreciate the stuffed file folders that were thrust at me. I would additionally suggest that the author edit and condense the magic list and magic book into one item.
Fortunately, those few floods of information are mitigated by a good conversation system, and most of the plot is distributed fairly evenly throughout the game.
All in all, fun IF with a happy ending.
Interesting, April 25, 2014The story here mixes a fairly standard domestic conflict with a maybe less standard alien invasion plot. It works well enough; no particular comments on the plot.
But the maps in the game are inspired. I'm not very familiar with Twine, but I haven't seen this done before. The sprawling map of the dark forest when it is reached, is startling in its beauty, a great centerpiece to the more minimal maps.
Unfortunately, the house and office floorplans are much more cleanly drawn than the maps for the alien settings. Combine that with downright vague directions like "up" "down" and "beneath", which are used around the vessel, and the two halves of the game seem unbalanced.
The gameplay flowed nicely. The human character's repeated choice between making stuff up and being honest felt like a natural choice to me, as did the alien's choice between eating things himself and sharing.
There were a few things that I expected to be interactive but turned out not to be. Taking the pills seemed to have no effect on the later story, as the narrator later quips that the human character should have taken the pills to (Spoiler - click to show)prevent a psychotic break.
Additionally, after (Spoiler - click to show)absorbing the bear, I was told that I would not be able to hold onto it for very long, but I was uncertain of whether this was a problem I actually had to solve, or just part of the narration. I'll have to replay and see what changes.
Edit: the two-star rating seems a little harsh in hindsight, and I was using it to reflect my feeling that the game was uneven in parts. Since there are no serious flaws, the game is probably closer to 2.5, so I've updated it to three stars.
Good existentialist IF, April 25, 2014You play through a day in the life of a man who experiences a series of strange events. Since I'm not above namedropping, I have to say it reminded a little of Dostoevsky's The Double. Awkward interactions with co-workers; a major faux-pas at a party; things like that. So there is quite a lot of good stuff built around themes of anxiety and embarassment and human relationships.
The first half of the game mainly consists of routine activity. The main character's personality, rather than being described, truly emerges from the actions that the player must perform. The game makes the player fret over little things like getting dressed in private, washing one's hands before lunch, and kissing one's wife before leaving for work. But the player's choices are open enough that the player does not feel locked in or led by the hand; for example, you can lose the game by (Spoiler - click to show)missing the bus.
The anxieties flow nicely into the second half of the game; when you discover (Spoiler - click to show)your rotten lunch, the story becomes much more surreal, and the gameplay involves more puzzles.
I spent more or less equal amounts of time on each half of the game. The mundane first half never becomes tedious, and the second surreal half never becomes overly frustrating--I only got stuck once in the second part. (Thanks to the author for helping me solve it.)
The end puzzle is truly excellent, and it's pure joy to try (Spoiler - click to show)different combinations of clothes and exit strategiesto arrive at different endings.
One puzzle that is troublesome involves enduring a conversation with guests. It involves trying a (Spoiler - click to show)certain number of actions rather than finding a particular correct action. This is a clever idea for a puzzle, because the only way not to win is to (Spoiler - click to show)give up. Unfortunately, some of the game's responses to my actions did not make sense. (eg. The game recognized biting as a completely different action.) The game's responses should have been much less specific given the high number of actions that players are bound to try.
If not for little technical errors like that, I would rate this game as a 4. As it is, it's probably worth 3.5 stars, but the star system doesn't allow for that.
A good entry into the Spring Thing 2014 competition, April 15, 2014The unique directional system was a nice alternative to difficult puzzles. It took time to get used to the "ups" and "downs" and "backs", and to get used to following the other characters. But it soon felt natural, and evoked a real sense of exploration.
Tension is effectively produced; my anticipation of the ending was pretty visceral. The game tells the player early on that something will go wrong, but the story is vague enough that every event seems a little more threatening.
From the (Spoiler - click to show)barking dog to a (Spoiler - click to show)breaking tree branch, everything seems to carry a little more chance of harm than it might otherwise. In fact, I honestly wasn't expecting (Spoiler - click to show)the game's open ending, despite the game being clearly labeled Part 1.
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